Transportation bill nears passage

First, the transportation bill conference report was delayed because it took forever to draft; now, it’s again been delayed over drafting errors and Democrats’ reluctance to sign it. But Republicans were still signaling confidence in a Friday vote.

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The conference report still hadn’t been filed in the House as of early Thursday evening, but all indications were that enough lawmakers had signed off on the deal so forward movement is just a matter of time.

Some of the snafu that delayed progress Thursday involved Democrats who were reluctant to sign off on the paperwork without having digested the deal in more detail, though on Thursday afternoon, Rep. Bill Shuster (R-Pa.) said the conference report had received enough ink to move forward.

“If you go back historically and look at particularly the farm bill and the highway bill, you’ll see a technical correction,” he said. “An amendment happens about six months later; it’s pretty normal.”

Rules Committee Chairman David Dreier (R-Calif.) told POLITICO that the committee would most likely meet Thursday evening, some time following the congressional baseball game, in order to prepare a rule for floor consideration on Friday.

And Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid was still trying to figure out how to move the transportation bill along with student loan and flood insurance in the package. Reid said his attempts to move the bill by unanimous consent had been delayed by objectors and added that the Congressional Budget Office had not yet issued a score because it received a copy of the legislation at 4 a.m. Thursday.

It’s now become clear that the House Republican leadership will need to waive one of their transparency rules they enacted as a definitive break with a legislative past that sometimes required lawmakers to vote on bills they hadn’t had time to read.

Rep. Steve LaTourette (R-Ohio) told POLITICO that given the circumstances on impending deadlines on both transportation and student loans, acting now rather than waiting is the right thing to do even if it conflicts with the party’s transparency message.

“It’s problematic, but I think if you ask most members, they would say if the choice is being here on Sunday or having a bipartisan consensus that waives the 72 hours, they’d go with the latter,” he said, noting next week’s weeklong recess and the fact that the bill still hasn’t been filed. “Seventy-two hours, now you’re into next week. I think most members would say, ‘If it’s filed and everybody has a fair chance to look at it, it’s online, we’ll waive it.’”